Shortly after Vice President Kamala Harris was officially endorsed by the White House as the presidential candidate, Elon Musk quickly reminded everyone of the potential downsides of four years with her as president.
As you likely know by now, President Joe Biden announced on Sunday that he no longer plans to seek a second term and, a half-hour later, endorsed Harris as his choice to lead the Democratic ticket.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” Biden wrote in his letter. “And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” he added.
The endorsement came soon after.
“My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President,” the president said. “And it’s been the best decision I’ve made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.”
The endorsement made her the clear favorite, although it wasn’t quite the immediate coronation everyone expected.
While many of the party’s top figures quickly backed Harris, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted on wanting an open convention if Biden were to drop out, according to The New York Times, and she didn’t mention Harris in her statement about Biden’s decision.
Former President Barack Obama also refrained from directly endorsing Harris, instead making vague comments that could be interpreted as support for an open convention. “We will be navigating uncharted waters in the days ahead,” he wrote in a Medium post. “But I have extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges.”
Tesla/SpaceX/X CEO Elon Musk didn’t miss the chance to express his disapproval. “Imagine 4 years of this…” Musk said in a Sunday night post on his social media platform, alongside a viral video of Harris from 2022.
In the clip, Harris says, “Good afternoon. I want to welcome these leaders for coming in to have this very important discussion about some of the most pressing issues of our time. I am Kamala Harris. My pronouns are ‘she’ and ‘her.’ I am a woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit.”
The remarks in question were from a “roundtable with disability advocates,” according to a White House transcript, held on July 26, 2022.
(Note that the mask was still being worn over 30 months after the COVID-19 pandemic began, well past the time when most people had stopped bothering with them.)
We’re not just recognizing how absurd this is now — although many people did, once again, notice how ridiculous it was:
As USA Today noted, it drew responses like this one from GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado at the time: “Kamala Harris just introduced herself with she/her pronouns at an official event. She then clarified that she was a ‘woman’ sitting at the table wearing a blue suit. This is what happens when your speechwriter quits and you hang around with Geriatric Joe too long.”
Even those representing disability groups at the meeting thought it was a bit excessive. Chris Danielsen, a spokesman for the National Federation for the Blind, criticized those mocking the remarks because “the intent behind it is at least inclusive.” However, he noted, “it was unclear to us how much of this is actually asked for by blind people.”
“In the community, there’s really debate about whether it’s needed. It kind of seems to some of us like one of these things that sighted people have decided to do, but it’s not necessarily something we said would be helpful,” Danielsen said.
No, it’s patronizing gibberish. And it’s patronizing gibberish that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris want to subject us to for four more years.
Is it any wonder, then, why Obama and Pelosi, among others, are holding off?
